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so, I was searching and reading things about reptiles trying to build a guideline for any kind of cold blooded peoples/aliens
I still have a hard time finding precises idea on how temperature regulation would work for cold blooded creature to manage their brain, given that there is several ways to be "cold blooded" there may be some more likely than other
I also could not find anything conclusive as if it is at all possible, but assuming it just is, how would it affect their behavior?
assuming their brain activity could just slow down to conserve energy, how would this affect their conscious and subconscious mind?
the first idea/theory I came up to answer that would be that their perception of time would change radically depending on the ambient heat, but I would love to hear other ideas that would make for particularly otherworldly behaviors
and one last theory I was thinking about, was that as smart as they could get, being cold blooded would bring down their need for food or their ability for constant labor, two major thing that would get in the way of them developing agriculture, or maybe large society/kingdom/empire as a whole, essentially keeping them as tribe peoples until outside influence reaches them
I haven't found any particular flaw in that theory yet, but I'd like to see it challenged
Jerder
Posted 2019-03-20T16:47:44.520
Reputation: 21
"How temperature regulation would work for cold blooded creature to manage their brain": the biggest problem is that an active brain, such as ours, dissipates a lot of heat. It's not clear to me how you could reconcile the highly active metabolism required to keep the brain turned on with poikilothermy. (Note that poikilothermy means that they have no means of keeping their internal temperature constant, other than by moving to a hotter or cooler place. Getting rid of excess heat is more important than retaining heat; after all, retaining heat can be done very easily just by being big.) – AlexP – 2019-03-20T17:02:14.017
I did mention the idea of slowing down their brain activity, which would mean a brain capable of problem solving, tool uses and abstraction, but not as active as ours, though it might be completely incompatible – Jerder – 2019-03-20T17:43:48.493
Pratchett's Trolls become supercomputers in the cold, we pick materials that fit the task & environment. If you want to stick to terrestrial biology the answer might be as simple as being amphibious or burrowers for heat management. As to how it would affect behavior, consider that hormones 'regulate' human behavior. If the creature had evolved such a dual-mode as a survival mechanism over a long period a lot of the behavioral regulation would likely be equally dual-moded/scalar or temperature resistant mechanisms not necessarily managed by the ambient heat dependant brain. – Giu Piete – 2019-03-20T23:39:35.763
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– JBH – 2019-03-20T23:47:53.577I suspect that environmental forces would drive them into effectively being endothermic (with all the energy costs that entails) by being more intellectually active than most reptilians. They'd eat way more than snakes. The nice thing is they could deal with famine very well, so this would be practical for a planet with less water than Earth. You're going to want them to be omnivorous as well. – Beefster – 2019-03-21T04:32:27.573
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